Abstract
Understanding the processing of sexual stimuli has become a significant part of research on human sexuality. In addition to individual characteristics (gender and sexual orientation), empirical studies have shown that cultural factors play an important role in sexual stimuli processing. The attitudes toward sex have been reported to be more conservative in East Asian societies as compared to western countries, and significantly more sexual difficulties are observed among East Asian people. However, stimulus materials, which potentially facilitate human sexuality research on native East Asian people, are relatively not satisfactory. Erotic stimuli depicting East Asian figures are limited in the existing picture datasets. To address this issue, we present a collection of 237 erotic and 108 control pictures, accompanied by self-reported ratings of sexual arousal, pleasantness, and sexual attractiveness for opposite-sex erotic stimuli by heterosexual males and females (n = 40, divided into two equal-sized subsamples). This collection is divided into six categories, depending on their contents: dressed males (44), semi-nude males (65), nude males (64), dressed females (64), semi-nude females (52), and nude females (56). We showed gender differences in sexual arousal, pleasantness, and sexual attractiveness ratings in response to opposite-sex erotic pictures. Males reported the highest levels of sexual arousal, pleasantness, and sexual attractiveness for nude female pictures, whereas females reported the highest levels of sexual arousal, pleasantness, and sexual attractiveness for semi-nude male pictures. The erotic picture dataset may provide a useful resource of erotic stimuli that can be used as stimulus materials in experimental research on sexual function in East Asians.
Highlights
Human sexual behavior is a means of reproduction and survival strategy (Hamilton, 1964), which is motivated by sexual pleasure (Tidon and Lewontin, 2004)
The sexual arousal ratings for nude male pictures were significantly higher than those for dressed ones (p < 0.001). These results suggest that females rated semi-nude male pictures as more sexual arousing than the other two types of male pictures
Females’ sexual attractiveness ratings for nude male pictures were significantly higher than those for dressed ones (p < 0.001). These results demonstrated that females rated semi-nude male pictures as more sexual attractiveness than the other two types of male pictures
Summary
Human sexual behavior is a means of reproduction and survival strategy (Hamilton, 1964), which is motivated by sexual pleasure (Tidon and Lewontin, 2004). Erotic pictures displaying real humans have been used to facilitate the research on human sexual behavior. Both facial and bodily cues reliably indicate gender, health, and fertility. East Asian Erotic Picture Dataset (WHR) is recognized to be a signal of health in both genders (Pouliot et al, 1994) and a signal of fertility in females (Bowman and Singh, 1993). Physiological arousal responses are supposed to follow when the sexually relevant contents are perceived to be positive. This process is considered to subsequently facilitate sexual behaviors and copulation (Walen and Roth, 1987)
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